GM’s Top Lawyer Says Some Staff Failed in Switch Recall

General Motors Co. (GM)’s top lawyer said
some of his staff failed the company in handling an ignition-switch defect and delayed recall that spurred U.S. government
investigations.

Some lawyers made mistakes, Michael Millikin, GM’s general
counsel, said in written testimony to be delivered to a Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee tomorrow.
Advance copies of remarks of five witnesses, including Chief
Executive Officer Mary Barra, were obtained by Bloomberg News.

“We had lawyers at GM who didn’t do their jobs; didn’t do
what was expected of them,” Millikin said in his statement.
“Those lawyers are no longer with the company.”

GM has recalled almost 26 million cars in the U.S. so far
this year, an all-time annual record that took shape in February
when the company announced an ignition-switch defect that
engineers had known about for years. This week’s hearing is GM’s
fourth since April 1 and will be more comprehensive, featuring
Kenneth Feinberg, who is administering a victim-compensation
program, and Anton Valukas, who led GM’s internal investigation.

In her testimony, Barra reiterates that the Detroit-based
company’s employees won’t forget the lessons of the recall, and
they’re working hard to address the underlying issues.

15 Employees

“I have been inundated with calls and e-mails from
employees telling me that they are more motivated than ever to
make GM the best possible company for customers,” Barra said.

At least 13 deaths in crashes have been blamed on a flawed
ignition switch, which can be inadvertently shut off when
jarred, cutting power to the engine and deactivating air bags.
It was later revealed that deliberations about the flaw were
occurring as far back as 2005, though no formal recall actions
were taken until this year.

That delay has led to investigations by the Transportation
Department, both chambers of Congress and federal prosecutors.

Barra announced the ousting of 15 employees last month,
without naming names, after the company released the results of
an internal investigation into why it took GM more than a decade
to identify problems with a defective ignition switch.

The probe, led by Valukas, blamed a lack of urgency in the
engineering and legal departments yet didn’t reveal any
conspiracy to cover up facts. The investigation confirmed that
neither Barra nor Millikin knew about the faulty switches.

The Valukas investigation found that Millikin hadn’t been
informed of the lengthy review of the Cobalt switch until the
recall decision was made in 2014 and that he was also unaware of
litigation involving fatal accidents.

Switch Feel

Some of the ousted executives included Lawrence Buonomo,
the administrative head of in-house litigation, and Bill Kemp, a
senior lawyer who was responsible for safety issues within GM’s
legal department, people who asked not to be identified because
the matter is private have said.

O’Neal emphasized that Delphi supplied the switch, not the
key or lock cylinder. The Troy, Michigan-based parts company
didn’t supply the steering column or determine where the lock-cylinder would be located, he said.

The “feel” of the switch, the amount of torque required
to turn it, was “very important to GM,” O’Neal said.

“GM knowingly approved a final design that included less
torque than the original target,” O’Neal said. “In our view,
that approval established the final specification.”

Delphi began working on a redesigned switch in January 2006
at GM’s request to address warranty concerns, O’Neal said.